Ronald Searle Fundraiser

I'm currently harassing every artistic, creative, cartoon loving, Searle appreciating friend and acquaintance (thank you Facebook!) to contribute original art to a project that's close to my heart.
I've maintained my Searle 'tribute' blog since 2006, subsequently got to know the great man himself and came to have a scholarly level of knowledge on his career and work. Now I'm living in the U.S. and following the Searle trail here I'm planning an exhibition of mostly unseen Searle work at the Cartoon Museum, San Francisco in November.  To compliment the show I'm working on a book collecting his entire 'American era' oeuvre - all the fantastic colour work he did in the 60s for HOLIDAY magazine, Look, Life etc.  I'm raising the funds required to ship original artwork, printing costs for the catalogue and generally put the show on.  I'm doing this as a labour of love and to raise money for The Cartoon Art Museum (a registered charity) and to bring Searle's work to an American audience.

I've made a special blog here showcasing all the incredible art I'm receiving from an international group of today's top animation artists and illustrators.

Here is my contribution with the 'rough' pass below. I will be contributing both pieces to the auction which will launch mid July.  The rough is in some ways more pleasing than the finished piece-looser, more spontaneous and perhaps more Searle-esque?

It's my interpretation of one of my favourite Searle characters Mr Lemonhart, who was part of an advertising campaign for LemonHart Rum which Searle illustrated throughout the 60s.

Becoming A Successful Illustrator

A couple of years ago I helped out the AOI's Derek Brazell with a chapter on Ronald Searle for his book Making Great Illustration.  Derek's new book is a guide for graduates entering the field and he just sent me the proof pages featuring my work!
The book will be published 28th June in the UK and 1st July in the USA.

Mahalo!

Painted 'thank you' cards for friends

'A Monster In Paris' Opening pt.2

The opening was initially conceived as a picnic at the Parc des Buttes Chaumont in Paris. It's a beautiful, man-made park constructed in 1867.  The Temple de la Sibylle is perched 30 meteres above the lake.   Living in the city at the time I was familiar with the spot and knew exactly how to exploit the location to create an exciting opening sequence.

Key Location art by Production Designer Francois Moret 

We had Emile & Maud enjoying their pic-nic on the waters' edge before the nightmarish alligator emerges and chases Maude up to the Temple.  To figure out the camera angles I made a plan

I roughed out a design of the alligator and made a couple of story sketches as beat boards.  (The one above of the pic-nic is based on a similar set up by Zebe but with the characters' positions switched)

I had a good amount of time to fully explore the possibilities in this sequence-I thoroughly thumb-nailed out all the staging possibilities that excited me.

I made this long pan to lead the viewer into the 'world' and introduce Emile and Maude. As soon as I finished drawing the sequence was reconceived as taking place in the Jardin des Plantes.

Here's an early pass on the storyboard for the opening sequence.  It has essentially the same shape-Emile wooing Maude, interrupted by the alligator, the chase, Emile vanquishes the beast, the 'world' disintegrates, Emile wakes from his dream . . . 

'A Monster In Paris' Opening pt.1

I was lucky that director Bibo Bergeron assigned me several juicy action and musical sequences to storyboard including the opening of the film. It went through several incarnations but was always structured around a giant monster chasing the films' protagonist Emile and the object of his affections Maud.
I'll come back to the early versions but for now here are the almost final storyboards before editorial & layout made their revisions.

In this clip (en Francais) from the final film you'll see it begins with newsreel footage of the 1910 Paris flood segueing into Emile's footage of his stroll with Maud. It sets up the world of the film and the interests and desires of one of the main characters very economically.

Un Monstre A Paris from Brandee Soard on Vimeo.

A Monster In Paris- finally released in the US!

Next week sees the Stateside release of a film I had the pleasure of storyboarding on FIVE years ago! These things take too long . . .  European backers EuropaCorp failed to find US distribution theatrically but fortunately Shout Factory have picked it up for dvd & blu-ray release.
Like the European and UK editions the Region 1 disk has precious few extras and an 'art of' book doesn't exist so I thought I'd finally share some of the work that went into this mini-masterpiece.
Over the next few weeks I'll post storyboards and links to some of the great artwork that made this film unique. Oh, and if you're living in the States and want to show your kids something special please support independent European animation and buy it!

I'll be posting concept art here and here with LOTS more storyboards to come . . .

SFO ZOO

I haven't drawn at a zoo since I lived in France-too long. Watching 'The Croods' left me fired up to sketch some exotic wildlife and the next day I made the long streetcar ride out to the San Francisco zoo.

I found my simian relatives at the gorilla enclosure !